Borrowed English Words
Last Modified: 02/08/2019
Discover which English words came from other languages.
- 1Do you often use shampoo or put ketchup on your food?
- 2Have you ever visited a sauna?
- 3If you think these words are originally English, you'd better think again.
- 4In fact, each of these words comes from a different language!
- 5Shampoo, for example, is actually a word from the Hindi language in India.
- 6This word originally meant "massage."
- 7In hair shops in India, barbers massage your head while washing your hair.
- 8Over time, British people in India used this word to mean "a liquid that cleans hair."
- 9Almost everyone knows what ketchup is.
- 10People all over the world like to pour this tomato sauce on French fries or sandwiches.
- 11This word is originally Chinese from "ketsiap," a fish sauce.
- 12In the 1600s, British and Dutch sailors brought this fish sauce to Europe.
- 13Over time, people changed the sauce by adding tomato flavor to it,...
- 14...but the name basically stayed the same.
- 15Sauna, a popular type of public steam room and shower facility,...
- 16...comes from the Finnish language.
- 17During one of the European Olympics,...
- 18...athletes from Britain and Germany saw Finnish athletes use saunas after training.
- 19Later, the general public all over Europe started using this style of bathing, too.
- 20Now, we still use this word to describe all kinds of steam rooms.
- 21English is full of many wonderful borrowed words from many languages.
- 22Perhaps English should change its name to Eng-hin-chi-fin-fre-ger-ital-span-ish!
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